Adoption of efficient technologies and strategies will see an uptick

What can we expect in the field of water management in 2023? Primary pressures expected to intensify include climate change, the infrastructure crisis, and growing urban water demand. Here are some factors decision-makers should take into consideration in the year to come.

Decentralization

Late 2021 saw the signing of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and its five years of funding for state revolving funds began this year. The law pays special attention to water and sanitation services for underserved communities such as Native Americans on tribal lands and poor communities in the South. 

When water and wastewater infrastructure must be replaced — or installed for the first time — decentralization can play an important role. Decentralization, which means placing smaller plants at the point of need rather than tying into distant, large-scale plants, can conserve water and significantly lower costs by eliminate much of the need for pipelining. 

Decentralized wastewater treatment solutions aren’t limited to domestic services. As industrial effluent regulations become more stringent, many enterprises are turning to decentralized, on-site wastewater treatment to increase water sustainability and lower the need for expensive effluent disposal. Top industrial sectors for decentralization growth include food and beverage, oil and gas, pulp and paper, chemical and petrochemical, health care, and poultry and agriculture industries.

Decentralized desalination is gaining viability as water costs rise and treatment costs drop. Many remote communities will explore decentralized desalination in 2023 to make plentiful brackish groundwater potable and suitable for agriculture. Industry is expected to explore decentralized desalination as a nontraditional source of water for operations.

Water as a Service

Some water companies are providing flexible financing that makes infrastructure possible in many more scenarios than in the past. In 2023, look for an increase in contracts that treat water and wastewater as a service. Legal frameworks that standardize and encourage such contracts have been rolling out globally.

Advanced technologies may be required to efficiently comply with tightening regulations. Instead of adopting these technologies on their own, both communities and industrial operations can bring in specialized companies already equipped to handle not only technological challenges, but regulatory and financial ones as well.

Both public-private partnerships and arrangements between two commercial entities can deliver infrastructure through build-own-operate, build-own-operate-transfer, and other similar contracts, often at no upfront cost. In this performance-based model, private companies provide a service over decades rather than delivering infrastructure then walking away.

Because the contracts include long-term operations and maintenance (O&M), clients no longer have to worry about winding up with inoperable plants that must be replaced at many times what regular O&M would have cost. 

Smart Metering

Non-revenue water (water that is treated but lost, unpaid-for) is a global problem. Whether stolen, lost from leaky pipes, or underreported by faulty meters, it can be crippling for utilities. 

Smart meters address the problem by transmitting data from end users to water companies daily, providing not only more accurate billing but allowing companies to quickly locate leaks and illegal connections across a service area. They also can make distribution networks easier to manage and give end users feedback to help them become more efficient in their water habits. Look for a steady increase in smart meter adoption in 2023.

The Invisible Infrastructure Crisis

News reports of this year’s water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi, may have come as a shock to many Americans, but the crisis is part of a decades-long trend that could result in most of the nation’s 20th century water and wastewater infrastructure becoming unusable. 

The cost of remedying a problem of this scale dwarfs the funding provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and most municipalities don’t have a plan for how to finance replacement of water infrastructure. 

The public remains largely unaware of the problem because the extensive infrastructure used to deliver water remains out of sight and out of mind until a crisis like Jackson’s strikes. Expect the nation’s invisible water infrastructure crisis to become much more visible in 2023.

Because of this crisis, public-private partnerships will likely increase in the coming year to provide flexible financing for infrastructure where access to capital and other resources is problematic, especially if inflation continues or recession descends. 

Inevitably, municipalities that wait for crises to strike in 2023 will pay significantly more for inaction than forward-thinking municipalities will pay for addressing their degraded infrastructure before a crisis forces a costly emergency build-out.